Beardsley Limner, The

Hezekiah Beardsley (1748–1790) was an American physician, the first to describe congenital hypertrophic stenosis of the pylorus in infants. The known facts of his life are scanty. He was born in Stratford, Connecticut, in 1748, and became a druggist and physician, and practised in Southington, Connecticut, as early as 1778, so far as health would permit. Two years later he appears to have removed to Hartford. An advertisement of his firm, "Beardsley and Hopkins," is to be found in the Connecticut Courant for June 26, 1781. In it we learn his drug store was situated "a few rods east of the Court House." In 1782 he removed to New Haven, where he had a similar store on Chapel street, between Church and Orange streets. At the time of his death, in 1790, from consumption, he had taken his brother-in-law into partnership with him. He was one of the original members of the New Haven County Medical Association, and served on the committees of correspondence and examination. In April, 1788, he reported a case of "scirrhus in the pylorus of an infant," which was the first case on record of congenital hypertrophy of the pylorus in an infant. It was printed with the papers of the society, which...